Fires can be difficult to locate in buildings. Smoke obscures views, and buildings can be large and complicated. The effort needed to find the fire takes time away from the available time for fighting the fire. Most fire departments use a 20 minute rule.
If the fire is not at least well under control within 20 minutes from inception, then the building, or the portion of the building that this fire is in, is probably lost. Fire departments then shift to containment strategies to attempt to prevent the fire from spreading and taking more of the building.
It would be helpful to fire fighters to know how the fire is developing in the building when they arrive on the scene, or as quickly as possible thereafter. Understanding fire development can be difficult given the levels of detection in some existing buildings. Some areas in some buildings may have very few fire detectors. This scarcity of detectors is permitted by code depending on when the fire protection system was installed, as well as the configuration of spaces and fire walls.
There continues to be a need to better assess fire location and direction of fire development to assist fire fighting and rescue personnel. Preferably existing alarm systems could be upgraded to provide this additional functionality.
Numerous other advantages and features of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description of the invention and the embodiment thereof, from the claims and from the accompanying drawings.